heliotropic
by displayheartcode
Summary: An insight on falling in love with five kisses they shared in that brief time dating at Hogwarts. [tumblr prompt, Gender AU – F/M]


**a/n**: Busy with NaNoWriMo and Secret Santa fic stuff.

Anon asked on my blog: Kissing in a stairwell, giving them an artificial height difference. One person has to bend down in order to kiss their partner, who is standing on their tip-toes to reach their partner's.

**Disclaimer**: ha ha ha ha ha

**Title**: heliotropic

**Word Count: **1K

**Summary**: An insight on falling in love with five kisses they shared in that brief tine dating at Hogwarts. [tumblr prompt, Gender AU – F/M]

* * *

**_i._**

If anyone had told Halley Potter that one she would be kissing Rory Weasley's brother in public, then she would have laughed.

Gideon was the boy who once stammered and blushed in her presence, the teammate with the infectious laugh and kept her moving. Kissing him was out of the question, a line Halley would never cross because of her friendship with Rory and not because she wanted to ignore the way his smile made her want to smile back.

But here she was a week into dating him and leaning over the bannister of the stairs to kiss him good morning as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Get a room," Rory complained by the portrait door.

"You're such a hypocrite," Hector said to her with a sigh.

**_ii._**

She had the silvery fabric of the Cloak wrapped around them like a shawl, hoping the deep shadows in the hidden alcove could offer enough protection. It was well beyond curfew, and Halley wasn't going to let a chance like this pass on by. She had her father's map in her back pocket, and she knew Rory and Hector were doing their nightly patrols on a different floor.

_"Shh…"_ Halley held her hands around his biceps, stilling him. "I thought I heard something."

"Silencing Charms exist," Gideon murmured against her jaw. He tucked the wayward strands of her black hair behind her ear. "We'll be fine."

He kissed her again, longer and lingering that made her gasp against his mouth. Halley was hardly a stranger to her own desires but being with him sparked them into a flame coiled low in her stomach. Her body arched to meet his like a flower twisting toward the sun, a breathy sigh of her name, the soft rasp of his. It filled her with an unknown joy that almost terrified her.

_See?_ whispered a small voice in the back of her mind. _You're allowed to be happy. You're allowed to want this._

**_iii._**

It was starting to feel like detentions with Snape were lasting longer than usual.

But in that second after his curt nod that her time was over, Halley bolted to the door without looking back, as if he was going to find something in her newfound joy that was against the school's rulebook.

She collided against her boyfriend nearly toppling the both of them over. They stumbled back to their feet, him laughing and her stuttering an apology.

_"Finally!_ I was thinking of ways to free you," he said with their fingers laced together. He raised them and kissed the back of her hand. "I was going to steal a spoon forged from Goblin metal and dig a secret tunnel."

"An effortless plan," said Halley. "I see no flaws."

"Then I was going to release a bannick in the room, and it'll be so distracted by Snape's hair that you'll escape through my incredible secret tunnel and straight to freedom." Gideon seemed pleased by his ridiculous plan. Even though Halley vaguely recalled from Hagrid's lessons that bannicks were native to Russian bathhouses and were occasionally bloodthirsty…

"And after?" she asked as they made a turn down a hallway. Spring sunlight from the stained-glass windows flooded the space and she could smell clean-cut grass and flowers from outside. Already, students were shedding their winter layers and making the most of what time they had left. The joy from the weather turning was infectious.

Gideon squeezed her hand. "Maybe some flying. Up for a one-on-one Quidditch match?"

**_iv._**

"Wait!" Halley rushed up to Gideon and pulled him down by his shirtsleeve. She rose on her toes and met his mouth halfway for a quick kiss before dropping his sleeve.

"What's that for?" he said, blushing. It pleased Halley knowing how she could startle him.

She ignored the gagging sound Rory was making behind her. A student whistled somewhere in the Great Hall. There was a knot of curious Hufflepuffs by the Gryffindor table acting like they weren't paying attention.

"Why not?" Her voice was almost unrecognizable to her own ears. Kissing Gideon in public was something she reserved for moments when they were mostly alone. Sometimes she surprised herself with her boldness. "Your History of Magic class is going to be boring."

Gideon nodded solemnly. "Then I might need another to hold me through."

**_v._**

There was something to be said for privacy. Halley wasn't sure how he had gotten his dorm-mates to leave for an unspecified time, but they were wrapped up in each other and hardly a care in the world about war or Horcruxes or the danger that increased each day.

Gideon sat down on his bed, and he pulled Halley down with him. She straddled his lap, one hand dipping down the back of his shirt, the other running through his soft red hair.

"So," she said, stretching the word out so that it had extra syllables, "This is what we've come to?" She handed him her glasses, and he put them on his bedside table. "I've always thought we'll be fumbling our way through in the changing room."

"Great minds think alike," he said. Gideon playfully nipped at her ear. "Shame that the Slytherin team ruined that for us." Halley hissed when his hands at her hips pressed her closer. Her body wanted more, keenly aware of how he felt against her. They'd spent the last month learning the language of each other's bodies, and Halley felt she was nearly fluent. "There's also the Astronomy Tower…"

Halley drew her hands back to his front. She tilted her head to the side, allowed herself a slight smirk, and popped the first button of his shirt.

**_vi._**

She had almost kissed him. In the sea of black-clad mourners, the gauzy veils hiding tear-stained faces and the dark bowler hats tipped low, the grief was so heavy that Halley felt like she might drown from the weight of it all.

_I never really gave up on you,_ he'd confessed. The revelation that they could've had ages…moths…years of this, that if Halley had only taken the time to really look at him, that if Gideon had grown into himself just a bit earlier…

But wishes were Threstrals, as it was said, and Halley had to stop herself from kissing him goodbye. The memory of him looking at her with the blazing intensity of the sun made her want to look back, to hold his hand and never let go.

But there was a war to be won.

She had her prophecy.

Halley forced herself to walk away from Gideon. Her heart broke with every step.


End file.
